Sunday, 31 January 2016

Yorkshire curd tart

Whenever Mr CC and I are in York there are two things I have
to eat: Firstly, a Fat Rascal from
Bettys, and secondly, a Yorkshire
Curd tart from Bennett’s – a lovely
little café right next to York Minster.
Admittedly, the curd tart has a slight lemon tang but I’m warming
towards lemon – I’m not saying we’re ever going to best friends but the
animosity and hurt is over.

I’ve long wanted to make a curd tart but it’s nigh on
impossible to find curd cheese unless you are blessed with a great deli, a
fancy supermarket or farm shop. Some
recipes say you can substitute ricotta but – whisper it for fear of causing offence – I’ve come to the
conclusion that I don’t like ricotta.
Neither the texture nor the blandness do anything for me in baked goods
(it’s ok in savoury recipes).

This recipe, adapted from the BBC GoodFood website, starts
with instructions how to make curd cheese and it’s a lot simpler than you might
think. Start with a very high fat, rich
milk:

The formation of the curds in the milk is like witchcraft; I
felt like I was at a cauldron making magic happen:

The most fascinating thing is that the curds suck the fat out
of the milk so, as they form, the remaining liquid turns more and more
watery. Really one of the most oddly enjoyable
things I’ve done for a long time! I had
no use for the whey, but apparently you can keep it and use it wherever you
would use buttermilk….thinking about it, it probably is buttermilk?

The only real thing to be aware of is that you need to start
it the day before to allow draining time.
A lot of draining time….I started it off in a tea towel lined colander
sitting in the sink….

… and then, after several hours, stood the colander (still tea
towel lined) in a bowl….

….before refrigerating it overnight. The next morning I had this:

This tart is perfect for anyone who doesn’t like overly sweet
bakes; it has a sharp zing to it from a combination of the lemon and curd
cheese. One slice will not be enough!

Ingredients

For the
curds:
1.8 litres full fat Jersey milk – this has 5g fat per 100ml (compared to semi
skimmed which has 1.8g per 100ml)
Juice of 1 ½ lemons
(NB. This made 445g curd cheese – so if you have curd cheese to hand and don’t
want to make it, use this weight)

Start making the curds the day before you want to serve the tart:
place the milk in a saucepan and bring to a simmer.

Add the lemon juice and turn the heat to low.

Gently stir while the curds form; if you are too firm you will
break the curds. The curds form very
quickly – mine were smaller than I expected (but I had nothing to compare it
to, so that probably doesn’t mean much).

Once the mixture looks watery with creamy lumps remove from
the heat and leave to cool.

Drain the curds overnight in the fridge. I lined a colander with a clean tea towel and
suspended this across a bowl. I started the draining process in the sink
because there was a lot of liquid and I didn’t need it for anything.

On the day of making the tart start with the pastry: place the
flour, butter and sugar in a food processor and blitz until you have breadcrumb
sized pieces.

Add the water gradually and only what is needed to form a
dough.

Tip the dough out onto a sheet of clingfilm and handle just
enough to bring together.

Flatten into a disc and wrap in clingfilm.

Refrigerate for 20 minutes, although the dough will happily
sit in the fridge for a couple of days.

Preheat the oven to 180C/fan oven 160C/350F/gas mark 4.

Roll out the pastry and use to line a 23cm loose bottomed tart
tin. Leave the excess pastry overhanging
the tin.

To make the filling beat together the butter and sugar until
soft and well combined.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Stir in the curds, making sure you break up any large lumps.

Stir in the currants.

Spoon into the pastry case (note – no need to blind bake the
pastry) and level the surface.

Grate some nutmeg over the top, or sprinkle over some ground
allspice.

Bake for approximately 40 minutes or until the tart feels set
and the pastry is golden.

10 comments:

I've only been to York once and I headed straight off to Betty's under strict instructions to try a curd tart. Oh boy was it good. Sadly I didn't know about fat rascals at the time. I too have made curd tarts including the curd cheese and really I should try again as they were rather good. I always keep whey, it's such useful stuff.

No witchcraft at all in the curd, all science! The lemon juice lowers the pH of the milk so it meets the isoelectric point of the proteins, therefore they become insoluble and precipitate, and that's the curd. The kitchen is just a small lab (but so much more rewarding). Looks yummy!

What a fascinating post CC. I had no idea curd cheese was so easy to make but yours looks amazing! I had a similar feeling of satisfaction when I made butter from double cream..... the liquid left from the separation of the fat making the butter was buttermilk which I used for scones. Having seen this, I now need to try making curd cheese...... and maybe I should make a gF version of the tart too!Thanks for the share!

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